On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 14:04:44 +0100 (CET), Mate Kapović
<
mkapovic@...> wrote:
>On Uto, veljača 20, 2007 8:30 am, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal reče:
>> Just a short unrelated note on the word lęto "summer". This
>> had been worrying me, because the usual etymology connects
>> it with Germanic le:T-, which must be barytone (Verner). If
>> so, lęto would be one of the few originally barytone neuter
>> which has remained neuter (NA ending -o). Normally,
>> originally barytone neuters become masculine (*dhwórom >
>> dvorU), and secondarily barytone neuters can be explained by
>> an appeal to Hirt's law (or other retractions).
>
>Isn't the dvorU-type change for non-acute stems only? Or am I mistaken?
Illich-Svitych gives the probably original barytone neuters
ty"lU (~ ty"lo), ga"dU, ja"dU, perhaps ly"ko (~ ly"kU). Dybo
adds gra"dU. The evidence is confused by PIE oxytone neuter
nouns which were affected by Hirt's law and other retraction
laws, and which retain -o. Also, if a word like *h2árh3-trom
was originally barytone (but looking at Latv. ar^kls, I'm
not so sure anymore), it's easy to see how the ending -dlo
would have been restored in a hypothetical lautgesetzliches
*or"dlU.
The main evidence for an originally barytone neuter
retaining -o without the possibility of an alternate
explanation for me was always le^to. If it's eliminated,
then I see no reason anymore to reject Kortlandt's
hypothesis that *-om was replaced by *-od in the oxytone
neuters only [and in the neuter adjectival forms, of
course], already before Hirt's law. All barytone neuters
retain original *-om > -U, and become masculines, whether
they end up in a.p. a or b.
>> In the online version of Vasmer, under "Trubachev's
>> comments", however, I read:
>>
>> Machek (Etymol. slovn., p. 265) considers original *<lęto
>> (vermeN)>, cognate with Lat. laetus, originally "beautiful",
>> i.e. lęto (summer) = "beautiful (time)", cf. NGr. kalokaíri
>> "summer", from kalós "beautiful", kairós "time".
>>
>> That would explain it: adjectives _always_ have -o.
>
>And the acute in Slavic?
I didn't say that Machek's etymology is necessarily correct:
just that le^to < adjective (in the phrase "le^to vermeN")
looks like the right solution. The Baltic acute can be
explained if Lat. laetus is from *láiHtos, but the
connection with *léh1t- in Germanic (OGutn. laTigs "in
spring", Swe.dial. laading "spring") and perhaps Celtic
(OIr. la(i)the "day" < *l&1tióm?) need not be given up: the
Celtic and Germanic forms are not totally incompatible with
an adjective *léh1t-os "good" or "beautiful".
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
miguelc@...